


who soothed the lions, hungry in their cage?

by orphan_account



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:31:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She wakes every night not screaming but remembering the screams she'd caused; reaching for a dagger, a net, a spear. Anything she can defend herself with in the big empty house her mother had inspected with one raised eyebrow and the corner of her lip downturned. Mother doesn't look at her the same way any more. Mother sees the blood Annie can't seem to wash off her hands. District Four isn't really her home, now. Begins to think that maybe people can form a sort of belonging between them and turns up at Mags' every day with a basket of fish and bread like the daughter of Poseidon; an offspring of God, grinning and tanned and freckled until she can ignore the scars the Games left on her body.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>if finnick and annie's situations were reversed, and finnick was the one left behind in four. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who soothed the lions, hungry in their cage?

**Author's Note:**

> a while ago i was asked to write this; if finnick had been the one traumatised and left behind in four, and annie went on to do all the things finnick did, so this is an au. i couldn't just leave it as a drabble so it's going to be chaptered.

Annie Cresta is thirteen when she wins her Games, and it is no fluke. She is tiny and waiflike, all reds and golds and blues and greens when she dresses like the ocean for her interviews and smiles at Caesar and waves to those in the Capitol who were kind enough to sponsor her even though she'd only cast a respectable but average nine out of twelve. Her chin is high and her smile doesn't fade while she watches the recap of it all. All that blood, all that mess, all those children screaming and the self loathing she feels for it is nothing compared to the coil of hatred snakelike (Snow-like) in her stomach for the people who have put her here.

At thirteen years old she feels forty three and knows more than anyone her age should – crows feet at her eyes and threads of silver in the copper of her hair. She wakes every night not screaming but remembering the screams she'd caused; reaching for a dagger, a net, a spear. Anything she can defend herself with in the big empty house her mother had inspected with one raised eyebrow and the corner of her lip downturned. Mother doesn't look at her the same way any more. Mother sees the blood Annie can't seem to wash off her hands. District Four isn't really her home, now. Begins to think that maybe people can form a sort of belonging between them and turns up at Mags' every day with a basket of fish and bread like the daughter of Poseidon; an offspring of God, grinning and tanned and freckled until she can ignore the scars the Games left on her body. Mags makes toast and tea, poaches the fish and shows her how to debone the fiddly creatures, holds her hand through her Victory Tour because that was what was decided. Annie would revert to something loveable, something vulnerable, laced fingers and bowed head and light tone which hides the way her flesh is turning to pearls, to diamonds, to something hard and unbreakable because she has too much to lose. Call it pride, call it what you like, but she protects her District with as much ferocity as if she were still in the arena. It's just something a little more subtle – a tilted head, a glance of concern, her cool hand on Caesar's hand when he speaks of how scared she must have been, asks how her life has changed. Sings nothing but praises for the Capitol and follows the beauty regime she is given as much as she can because if this is how Snow wants to play then she'll follow the rules and win. Annie is allowed to keep what's left of her childhood until she is fifteen, until Snow calls her to the city and smiles and Annie has to grit her teeth until her jaw aches from smiling as she looks him over. Reptilian and terrifying, she feels nothing but revulsion for him. There's no fear in the square set of her shoulders, in the steel grey-green glint of her gaze, in the narrow angles of her face. Even as he details what he calls a Victor's Duty.

“Did you know about this?” Her voice trembles with anger, with violation, with rebellion as she paces around on Mags' porch, hands pale from winter raking through the weeds of her hair and fluttering over the ridge and cliffs of her throat and collarbones. Mags sighs, doesn't speak, hasn't spoken in a year. Illness is a terrible thing. Annie sinks to sit beside her, small but rounded, feminine and womanly now, which she supposes is what Snow (and the Capitol) wants from her. She'd ceased to be a child the moment she'd held that knife above her head and brought it down against the artery of the boy from One. “Did you have to do this?” She watches the woman nod and feels her chest constrict with tears for the first time since the Games. She feels arms like willow branches wrap around her as the first surprised and ragged sob comes from somewhere deep in her gut, turns into her shoulder and cries into her curls. Where there had been the reassurance of a quiet life left alone, besides mentoring alongside Mags (something she hasn't been invited to do, yet, but this year... when she starts fulfilling her duty), there is now only the gaping hole of rage and fear, of sickness. Their nations history is taking everything from her. Everything she has apart from the water, the sea, and she sits in the shallows for an age uncaring of her dress until the sun goes down and Mags brings her a flask of soup. Pats her on the head and smiles sadly then pads back up the shore in bare feet, skirt held up in her twisted and wizened fingers. Annie eats a quarter of it, looking across the horizon at the haze where the stars go out, alone, until the surf next to her splashes and she is joined. The body next to her is not Mags, and yet Mags is the only one who willingly interacts with her these days, so she drags her eyes up and away from the water. Finnick Odair has always been beautiful, always been intimidating, and for the first time Annie feels like the teenager she is when he smiles and she smiles and they say nothing but share the rest of the soup in a rippling silence. When he holds her hand to walk up the beach, then kisses her cheek when they part at the row of Victors houses overlooking the sand, it feels as though it is the most natural thing in the world, and Annie goes to bed with a smile on her face. 

She realises it is a mistake when Finnick's name is called, and she has to sit through it all with her legs together and her hands clasped and her stomach churning like she's cast out to sea in a storm. Her heart pounds against her ribs as she watches him, shellshocked, blonde and tanned and perfect, and can only think that he'll be eaten alive in the arena, the Capitol, and she doesn't know if it would be better for him to die quickly at the hands of his peers or to live and do what she does (she thinks about the first time, two seeks before, how it had burned and she had cried and the man holding her had sighed like she was doing something wrong).

“Annie.” He sounds a million years old when she is eventually allowed to see him, when they are on the train to the Capitol on a journey which will take two days and everything she loves from this boy of gold. “What do I do?” And for someone who is eighteen he looks remarkably young, eyes wide and mouth and cheeks damp from privately cried tears. Annie sighs, puts her face in her hands and presses against her eyes until she can think clearly, then she takes Finnick's chin in her fingers and pulls until they're kissing. She hadn't, exactly, envisioned their first kiss being so desperate. So panicked and rushed although the salt is no surprise. Annie doesn't know who's crying but it tastes of the sea and so it tastes of home.

“There is no you and I, now.” Mumbled in the midst of lips and teeth and tongue, his hands curled around her wrists to hold her close, keep her real and solid near him. “There is us. In the arena, out here. We can't be seen to be anything less.” It will help sponsors, and Mags agrees later on, if they are seen as something close and solid if still childish and innocent. It isn't until her second client, Finnick's first night in the arena, that she comes to realise exactly how far that pretence will get her. A grin, a bounce on her toes and the acceptance of a kiss is all she need give to be allowed to watch the man she loves find fresh water, find a hiding place and almost, almost (she hides her face in the Capitolian's chest, and he wraps an arm around her back and holds her tight and reassures her) lights a fire before thinking better of it. There is a certain gentleness about him which allows her to fake an orgasm early on, bringing him the rest of the way for his, and she waits until he is asleep to leave.

The next day Finnick is sent heat packs to stem his shivering without the need of a fire.

The Games last two weeks until something, somewhere goes wrong. Finnick is already desperately thin, shaking despite the things she's had sent to him, frantic as he knots vines together and twists and twists to make a net until there's a distant rumble like thunder and three of the camera's by the dam fizzle out. Finnick realises before Annie does, she's sure of it, alert as a rabbit with a trident strapped to his back as he scales a tree and then goes with the current when the water gets too high. If there's anything for Four to boast, it's that they are strong swimmers, and it isn't until now that Annie allows herself to hope. Stood in front of the screens in her green dress and her hands clasped in front of her in prayer. Finnick is exhausted, she can see, working at the waves on autopilot until he finds a log, clings on and presses his forehead against the bark until red welts appear on his forehead. Oh, she loves him even when he's smeared with dirt and blood. She can see it all in the lidded darkness of his eyes, what it does to everyone. Annie thinks that perhaps she is lucky that she is made of strong stuff – of the sediment of a thousand years, of bone and shell – stronger than Finnick as he visibly crumbles like the face of a cliff in a hurricane.

He is of a gentler nature, perhaps, but Annie still screams when a boy from Six surfaces on the other side of the log, hair rusty blonde from blood and teeth bared as he swipes for Finnick over the wood. It is over quickly – Finnick fishlike in the water and skilled with that damn trident – and the canon sounds before Finnick kicks the body away and goes back to clinging, to breathing, to keeping his head above water as he announced the winner.

Annie sinks to her knees and thanks Poseidon for the gifts he sends.

She is allowed to see him once he is sleeping, face smoothed and at peace as she strokes his hair and whispers how proud she is, how well he's done, how sorry she is that he had to do it at all. She doesn't think about what it means to them that Four has had two Victors two years running. Snow will not be pleased, but there's nothing Annie can do about that. Her priority from the very beginning has been Finnick's safety, and here he is. Safe in a hospital bed with an Avox watching over him. When he wakes the whites of his eyes are red from salt water and tears, lack of sleep, trauma, but his irises are the same sea green she has been looking at for months. The shake returns to his hands and he sits, blinks once at her, then grits his teeth and swings with the back of his palm. The impact doesn't happen – the Avox is fast and strong, fingers digging into his forearm as he pants and then calms – but Annie barely blinks. Of course. Of course he wouldn't be the same sweet boy who went in. His arm lowers and he bites his bottom lip, fists his hands in the sheets and twists like he's trying to make a rope. 

“Annie. Annie, I'm sorry.” Voice husky from disuse, from yelling, from dehydration and starvation, and all Annie can do is climb onto the bed with him and hold him tight, cameras be damned, Snow be damned. Annie knows, she knows, she knows he's sorry, and she is too. Presses a kiss to his forehead and lets him hold onto her like she's a mermaid and he's drowning.


End file.
